What to do when a bank wrongly deposits millions in your account

TWO stories on banking errors. The first involves the €18m deposited into Laura Hughes’s bank account. Hughes, of Athenry, Co Galway, was surprised to see the new balance in her Ulster Bank account of €18,099, 425.99 – a figure that includes the 35c she had saved before the windfall.

Hughes moved €9,000 into another account. She thought about buying a new Nissan Micra car. She says her “gut instinct wouldn’t let me do it”. Then the bank shut down her account. How fair is that? They make the error and hen forcibly close your account?A lawyer tells the Irish Independent that had Hughes spent the cash, the bank would have gone after her.

Better, perhaps, had she acted like the German man, known only as Michael H., whose bank, Comdirect, gave him €200 million in error. He had sold shares to the value of €20,000 – but Mr H’s online bank put a lot more in his account. Michael H. quickly moved €10 million to a different bank. Comdirect did get their €200 million back. They then ordered the man who pay them €12,000 in interest on the transfered cash.The matter reached the court in Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein, which ruled that Comdirect should let the man keep the €12,000 – and the interest it accrued over the last year. A spokesman for Comdirect, owned by Commerzbank, is not happy. The bank wants to appeal. He says:

“People who want to use money that does not belong to them generally have to pay interest. That is the same for everyone. We only implemented normal procedures – it was nothing more than correct protocol.”

Priceless. The banks make errors with their customers’ money and then tell you about correct protocols.

It’s a pity these people didn’t have the sense to transfer the money to the cayman Islands or switzerland. Then simply tell the bank to sit and swivel.
I’d probably put half of it into off shore accounts with the other half kept in BitCoin form and used as pocket money.

http://www.anorak.co.uk Anorak

How did he put 10mill in bank account without the receiving bank calling him up and asking where he got it from?

David

My old former bank worked the other way. Back before online payments they paid a check for my monthly car insurance payment for $5436 instead of $54.36. Strangely the insurance company never said a word and I only found out when I started getting bounced check notices (and charges) in the mail. When I went in to see what was going on they seemed very hurt to be accused of making a mistake and kept insisting I actually wrote the check for that amount. I asked if they actually believed I paid $65232 a year for car insurance. They just shrugged.
Well, it was finally sorted out and now they’re my “Former” bank.
Thank God for online banking and automatic payments!

Jezinho

Under English law, a payment received into your account in error is not your money and you are not entitled to spend it. As amusing as it must be to see EUR 18m suddenly appear in your account, you know it isn’t your money and you know that a bank is going to notice at some point. So to spend it, transfer it elsewhere, etc. is theft. Suppose we don’t live in an age any more when you would hand in to the cops a tenner you found in the park.

dairy

that’s fair enough Jezinho – but the article is correct; it is the bank’s mistake and they should have the decency to acknowledge that, rather than attempting to blame the customer and take the moral high ground, which these days is just simply laughable….

Emma

Spending money that erroneously appears in your bank account is likely to put you in prison.
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Moreover, funnelling the money through off-shore interests is likely to get you done for false accounting and money laundering. You are also liable to be subject to the Proceeds of Crime Act. 10-14 years in prison would be the likely outcome.

Mr Man, you only go to open prison generally for the last part of your sentence. If you are only serving 12 months or so, you could be lucky to serve the lion’s share in open provided it is a non-violent crime. With a 10 year sentence, only around 6-12 months will be served in open. Whatever the crime.
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Even Archer and Aitken had to spend most of their sentences in closed prisons (both of them were actually incarcerated in Belmarsh for part of their sentences).
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I always find it amusing that people seem to think there are ‘special’ nice prisons for ‘nice’ criminals. In actual fact, in prison, everyone (bar sex offenders, imprisoned police officers and informers) are equal. Indeed, generally open prison has more murderers in than most prisons as they are resettlement prisons. This type of crime is just as likely as any other to see a person sharing a cell with a drug-addicted, violent armed robber.